


Boiling the Frog

by Hornswaggler



Category: Helix
Genre: Dark Past, Gen, Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 16:46:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1273741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hornswaggler/pseuds/Hornswaggler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Put a frog in warm water and slowly heat it up, it'll be boiled to death without noticing. Growing up in the cartel isn't much different.</p>
<p>Very short drabble glancing at Sergio's childhood and the transition from an errand boy to a trained killer. Mere speculation at this point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boiling the Frog

**Author's Note:**

> I feel oddly proud and slightly sad that mine will be the first Helix story up here. Nonetheless, it's short, it's not great, but I've been obsessing over Sergio lately and spat this out late at night.
> 
> As of now we are waiting for Day 10, so I only know the information we've been given through Day 9. We'll probably get more actual backstory eventually, but for now i shall speculate.

It was always just a little job. More of an errand, really, nothing special, and it paid well. Take a package to this address, give this envelope to that man on the corner, pass along a message to some friends…nothing big, nothing overtly illegal – at least not that he could tell.

It didn’t take much to get into the cartel. They loved having kids to do their errands, since cops didn’t suspect a ten-year-old as much as they might a gruff looking adult. Stuff got delivered and the kids got some money to do whatever they wanted with. Sergio figured he could always use the extra money, and it was good to actually have something to do. He had absolutely no problem carrying a paper bag across the neighborhood and he was only tempted to look inside once or twice. The sender and the recipient always seemed extremely grateful, and hey, he could be working in a factory or something.

He was an errand boy, and that was it. At least, that was it until one man had handed him a small pistol along with the package, muttering swift instructions that if anyone tried to take it from him, he was to just point, shoot, and run. He had seen men use guns before plenty of times, but the weight of it in his hoodie pocket was some mixture of terrifying and exhilarating. He hadn’t had to use it that time and had dutifully returned it to its owner once the job was done. It wasn’t long after that that the errands became a little more complicated. Grab that box from the vendor’s cart and walk off; take that pack of cigarettes from the store; hold up this gun and don’t put it down until they give you the money.

The man who took Sergio under his wing was named Abílio. He was stocky, dark, and had a laugh like a hyena. Though he couldn’t exactly be called nurturing, he taught the boy survival skills, and on the streets that was everything.

You fight like a crippled chicken – here, stand like this, see?

Keep one hand under the gun here, keep your shot steadier.

Smile more; it confuses people.

Do not blink so much when you lie – but do not stare, people won’t trust you if you stare.

He wasn’t sure when the transition happened, but suddenly he was receiving occasional bags and messages from the errand boys. His own jobs became more and more blatantly illegal, and Sergio found himself never even pausing to consider things like that. He rarely considered much besides what had to be done that day, perhaps the next. It was easier and more efficient to focus on the present rather than being worried about something as trivial as the law catching up to him.

He didn’t consider it at all until he was sixteen. Not until he felt the snap of a man’s neck reverberating up his arms and watched the body fall to the concrete. Not until he realized it hadn’t been hard, that he’d likely do it again, and that to some people that might raise some serious concerns.

But hey, what else was there? The favelas didn’t exactly have a great job market. He didn’t exactly have much of an education. All it was in these areas was survival – eat or be eaten, shoot or be shot. You did what you were supposed to and you survived another day.

And if there was one thing Sergio excelled at, it was surviving.


End file.
